Carmelo Anthony doesn’t think All-Star ‘draft’ should be televised

This year, when the NBA All-Star Game takes place in Los Angeles, it will be the first time that the game doesn’t feature the Eastern Conference All-Stars versus the Western Conference All-Stars.

Back in October, the NBA announced that it would eliminate the teams and instead have the East and West players who receive the highest amount of votes serve as captains of the two squads. And rather than dividing the teams up among conferences, the two captains will draft their teams from the pool of 22 other players selected to be in the game.

Initially, it was assumed by most people that the draft would be televised, but it seems that a fair amount of players are pushing back on the idea. Count Carmelo Anthony among them.

“I don’t think you should televise that, if that’s what’s going on,” Anthony said on Thursday. “I don’t think you should televise that. I think that’s something you should keep in house. I don’t think everybody in the outside world needs to kinda be on the inside of that.”

Anthony also believes that the All-Star draft could be a bit controversial, with personal relationships and friendships coming into play when players are deciding on who to draft and when to select them.

“You’ll have a lot of players that are kinda mad at whoever the captain is,” Anthony said with a chuckle. “Whoever the captains are, guys are gonna be mad, guys are gonna be upset, friendships can come into play.”

With that being said, Anthony did make it clear that he supports the idea – despite the potential issues.

“I think it’s a fun thing to do,” he said. “I think it’s time that you gotta switch it up, it’s time that you gotta figure it out for the All-Star Game [to] bring back that excitement, not just for the weekend but for the game itself. They’re gonna try it, if it works, then they came up with a hell of an idea.”

Melo doesn’t think the All-Star draft should be televised but seemed excited about the potential rivalries that could stem from it: “Friendships can come into play”

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Moke Hamilton

Moke Hamilton is a writer and columnist for the USA TODAY Sports Media Group's NBA Wire. Based in New York City, Moke has covered the NBA for seven seasons, previously working for Turner Sports and NBC Universal. He can be heard from time to time on the airwaves of 98.7FM ESPN New York.